ANC loses battle for Zuma’s MK party name and logo

By BBC.

Johannesburg

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) has lost a legal bid to stop a new party from using the name and logo of its former armed wing.

The governing ANC had argued that uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), headed by ex-President Jacob Zuma, had breached trademark law.

But the Durban High Court disagreed, allowing the use of the name, which translates as Spear of the Nation.

It is a significant victory for MK ahead the 29 May general election.

Mr Zuma’s supporters cheered and chanted in court after the judgement was delivered.

Last month, the ANC suffered another legal blow in its attempt to stop MK from running in the election, saying it had not met the official registration criteria.

The MK name and logo holds huge political symbolism because of the now-defunct armed wing’s role in fighting for the end of white-minority rule in South Africa.

The new MK party may have no chance of winning the election, but it likely to bruise the ANC, which, for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994, could lose its outright majority in parliament.

Mr Zuma, a former stalwart of the ANC who once served in its armed wing, was South Africa’s president for nine years from 2009.

He was forced from power and replaced by current President Cyril Ramaphosa in part over corruption allegations, which Mr Zuma denies.

Visvin Reddy – the provincial leader of MK in KwaZulu-Natal, Mr Zuma’s home province where he enjoys considerable support – said it was the best possible news for the party that was launched in December.

He told the TV channel Newsroom Afrika from outside the courtroom in Durban that the ANC’s legal challenges to the party’s existence showed it was running scared.

In a 42-page ruling, Judge Mahendra Chetty said the ANC’s case was really a matter for an electoral court, not the high court.